Could insurance do more than protect against loss? 2026 Lloyd’s Australia Innovators Scholarship winner Will Freyer believes it can unlock investment, innovation and resilience in an increasingly complex risk landscape.

By Anna Lopata – ANZIIF senior writer

For Will Freyer, one of insurance’s most interesting possibilities lies not simply in protecting assets, but in helping worthwhile projects get off the ground.

That thinking sits behind the Carbon Performance Protection Facility: Unlocking carbon project finance through innovative risk transfer, the proposal that earned Freyer the 2026 Lloyd’s Australia Innovators Scholarship.

Lloyd’s Australia Innovators Scholarship

The Lloyd’s Australia Innovators Scholarship champions new thinking that can help insurance respond to emerging risks across the region.

It recognises future leaders and creative thinkers while building understanding of Lloyd’s and its role in shaping insurance and reinsurance, both locally and globally.

Applicants were invited to submit a one-page pitch drawing on Lloyd’s legacy of innovation to address climate resilience and extreme weather, or digital risk and AI-driven insurance innovation.

Shortlisted applicants then presented their ideas. Freyer was selected from a record and highly competitive field.

Lloyd’s said his industry experience may be relatively new, but his proposal immediately connected with those assessing the entries.

“As a current Allianz Graduate Program participant, Will may be a newcomer to the insurance industry, but his pitch really spoke to the judging panel.”

“Faced with a record number of candidates, Will stood out by framing a highly specialised risk into an opportunity that might appeal to a broader market, featuring a parametric element and a focus on financing risk and being a project-finance enabler.”

“Will’s enthusiasm for the topic and engaging presentation made him a worthy winner, being the forward-thinking talent the Lloyd’s Innovators Scholarship aims to support and advance.”

Closing the financing gap

Freyer’s concept explores how insurance solutions could address financing risk and help enable investment in credible carbon projects.

It emerged from his interest in the gap between the investment required to support the transition to a lower-carbon economy and the obstacles that can prevent capital reaching individual projects.

As he looked more closely at carbon markets, Freyer became particularly interested in uncertainty around project performance and what that means for investors.

“Some of these barriers are fundamentally questions of risk allocation,” he says.

“That prompted me to consider whether insurance could play a broader role: not simply responding when something goes wrong but providing greater confidence to the parties considering financing or investing in a project.”

From there, the Carbon Performance Protection Facility took shape as an exploration of how insurance might address a protection gap and support investment.

At its heart is a question with implications beyond carbon markets: what becomes possible when insurance expertise is brought into a project before risk is handed over for pricing?

From protection to possibility

For Freyer, the opportunity is to think more expansively about what risk transfer can achieve.

“Insurance has traditionally been described as a mechanism for transferring risk, but it can also enable activity that might otherwise not occur,” he says.

“That is especially relevant where a project is attractive but contains a risk that investors, lenders or boards are unwilling to hold.”

That principle could apply across climate adaptation, renewable energy infrastructure and nature-based solutions, as well as new technologies, complex supply chains and emerging industries. It also points towards a different relationship between insurers and the organisations they protect.

“We have data, risk engineering expertise, claims experience and a unique view across sectors,” Freyer says.

“If those capabilities are brought into a project earlier, insurance can help shape risk rather than simply price it at the end. I see an opportunity for insurers to become more integrated partners in investment and resilience decisions.”

An unexpected path into insurance

Insurance was not part of Freyer’s original career plan. Before joining Allianz Australia, much of his life revolved around elite athletics and long jump.

The discipline and resilience required in high-level sport taught him to make decisions under pressure and respond when results did not go to plan.

When that chapter ended in 2024, Freyer sought out people across different industries to understand their work. A conversation with an insurance professional changed his view of a sector he had associated mainly with pricing risk and paying claims. Soon afterwards, he joined Allianz as an intern.

“I quickly realised it underpins almost every part of the economy,” he says. “It enables businesses to invest and take risks, helps households recover when things go wrong, and gives new ideas the confidence and capacity to move forward.”

Now a Graduate in Allianz Australia’s Technical Division, Freyer has gained exposure to claims, underwriting, distribution, portfolio management and strategy.

Claims showed him the importance of the promise made to customers, while underwriting demonstrated the discipline required to make sound decisions under uncertainty. That inside view of insurance as both protection and economic infrastructure became central to his scholarship proposal.

Making sense of interconnected risk

Freyer identifies climate volatility, artificial intelligence, cyber risk and affordability among the forces likely to shape insurance over the next five to ten years. However, he believes the more significant story lies in the relationships between them.

“Risks are becoming harder to view in isolation,” he says. “A technology failure can disrupt a supply chain; a weather event can become a business interruption and affordability issue, and geopolitical instability can have consequences for customers and businesses far removed from the original event.”

Technical insurance knowledge will remain essential, but Freyer believes emerging professionals will also need to understand data, technology, climate science and changing customer expectations. Just as importantly, they must be able to turn complexity into something people can act upon.

“We need to become better at translating complexity into clear decisions,” he says.

“Younger professionals have an opportunity to challenge established assumptions and bring new perspectives, while still respecting the technical discipline and institutional knowledge that has allowed the industry to endure for centuries.”

A prize designed to advance an idea

Freyer says winning the scholarship is both recognition of his proposal and an opportunity to test and develop it with people across the insurance ecosystem. He is particularly enthusiastic about building the technical knowledge and industry relationships that could help move the concept beyond the pitch stage.

The scholarship provides:

• Enrolment in ANZIIF’s Lloyd’s Demystified course.
• Support towards an ANZIIF Diploma, valued at up to $5,000.
• A one-year Individual Insider membership with Insurtech Australia, valued at $462.
• A day-in-the-life experience at the Lloyd’s Australia office in Sydney.
• Mentorship through Insurtech Australia to help develop the winning idea.

Together, those opportunities give Freyer access to education, market insight, professional networks and practical guidance as he examines where the Carbon Performance Protection Facility could go next.

Insurance that makes things happen

The facility remains an idea to be developed, but the thinking behind it already raises a larger question for the industry.

As climate, technological and economic risks become more interconnected, insurers may have greater opportunities to use their knowledge not only to respond to risk, but to help determine which risks can be taken in the first place.

“I hope to play a part in making insurance more relevant to emerging risks and more effective as an enabler of investment, innovation and resilience,” Freyer says.

For an industry built on understanding uncertainty, it is a compelling reminder that the value of insurance may lie not only in what it protects, but in what it gives people the confidence to begin.

Applications for 2027

Entries for the 2027 Lloyd’s Australia Innovators Scholarship are expected to open early next year. Interested applicants can contact AUEnquiries@lloyds.com for information and updates.